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It's Friday -- which is the day after Thursday -- and that means it's time for us to continue the Public Eye Chat we began yesterday (discussing Vatican media protocol, among other things) with CBS News London Correspondent Richard Roth.

Matthew Felling: As for the events of the last week, were there any surprises or difficulties that popped up in covering the bombing attempts?

Richard Roth: There’s always difficulty here in the lack of information released once the criminal process is underway. For example, when the police tell you that someone’s arrested – I’m on one of the alert systems that the Metropolitan Police have – here’s the kind of detail you get: “We’ve arrested A, B and C” is what the e-mail says. They may have ages, towns where the arrests took place. But there’ll be nothing more than that. Slowly, some of the information may filter out, but on an official level, they’re so careful and so concerned about pre-trial publicity that could influence the criminal justice process that there’s very little specific information that comes out. That’s what you see unfolding in this story. There’s going to be a lot [of media coverage] about this that I’ll bet will either be wrong in substance or wrong in small details by the time this procedure is over. That’s always a frustration.

I was only on this story on Friday, when it was very quickly developing in terms of what had actually happened. But it was essentially the same frustrations all journalists feel who want to get facts and get enough of them right in a story that’s breaking fast.

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It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News London Correspondent Richard Roth.

Matthew Felling: You’ve been a reporter stateside and you’ve covered a number of cities around the world. Are there any traits – personally or professionally – that differentiate foreign correspondents?

Richard Roth: The skill set is probably the same. But like calluses, our skills have developed over time in different ways. Perhaps by working overseas, some of us may have acquired a greater tolerance for ambiguity in unusual cultural situations. Anybody who is a successful foreign correspondent has gotten over the unease that accompanies total ignorance of a specific foreign language.

I remember in my early days working overseas … I don’t remember what country I was in, but I was working with a very experienced producer who – in the days before cell phones – was trying to make a phone call to New York and reverse the charges. He was trying to call New York and couldn’t get a translator, so he was shouting into the phone ‘Collect, collect, collect!’ Until finally the operator got the idea, New York paid for the call and we were able to file on the phone.

Inquisitiveness, doggedness, a certain tolerance for ambiguity and, probably in these days, more frequently the ability to sleep in very uncomfortable places are what’s required to be a good foreign correspondent that’s not as often required of a domestic correspondent.

In our particular business, the clock works for us, at least in this part of the world. In London you’re five hours ahead, and that gives you more time to work on a story. Every time I’ve moved back to the states, I’ve felt awfully rushed coming up against an evening deadline. The “Evening News” comes on at 6:30 there, but it’s not until 11:30 here.

Matthew Felling: So the time difference improves your work, you think?

Richard Roth: You get a little more time to think, a little more time to craft, a little more time to gather information – and frequently a little less time to sleep.

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Check out this Richard Roth report from last night's "Evening News" about a new memorial in France for journalists who have been killed on the job. It's an important reminder that journalists who risk their lives to cover high-risk areas – among them CBS News' own Paul Douglas and James Brolan – sometimes pay a fatal price. Click on the video box to watch.

In covering a story like the current conflict in the Middle East -- wrought with a long and complex history – the information that gets lost in the headlines is the sometimes the most basic. On the “Evening News” Monday night, correspondent Richard Roth’s segment set out to explain some of the more basic questions about Hezbollah and its motivations. It's the type of story that has its challenges -- especially in the context of television (how do you explain Hezbollah in two minutes?) What follows is Roth’s story behind the story – how the segment came about and how it was executed:

Some of what transpired in this assignment and its execution is, I think, a reflection of some of the healthy introspection that goes on in a news organization. I didn't “pitch” the story; it was assigned to me. I kind of figured my day in Beirut would be busy - and productive - enough that I'd have a credible "hard news" piece to offer the “Evening News.” I had some ideas to pursue and some people I'd made appointments with to meet.

But Monday morning I woke up to an e-mail saying the “Evening News” wanted a story answering two questions: "What's Hezbollah?” and "What do they want?" I'd been copied on some internal e-mail traffic, and as I read it, it seemed to me some of the inspiration to try and take a small step back had actually come from a CBS News colleague. He'd been watching the broadcast, and as a viewer he had some questions - which he mused about in an e-mail.

The assignment made good sense to me, though actually I thought the questions had been asked and answered in a section of another story done for “Evening News” the week before. I did make it known that I had some other editorial business that I thought might bear fruit and that I wanted to pursue - and mentioned to a producer that I thought the "who and what" about Hezbollah might end up being just a part of my story that night.

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How much knowledge do journalists assume on the part of their audiences when putting together stories on the Middle East? We asked Sharyn Alfonsi and Richard Roth, two of the correspondents who have been covering the conflict for CBS News. They responded via email.

"This is a challenge in all we do almost everyday as broadcast journalists anywhere in the world; one difference in THIS region is that there's hardly a word or a phrase that one side or the other doesn't find 'loaded.' And one side's history is another side's propaganda," writes Roth.

He continues: "How much history do I assume our audience knows? Well, last week in Israel I found myself writing of a rocket attack on 'Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee,' then changing that to 'The biblical city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee,' which added just a tiny bit of context that didn't take up much precious airtime - which tends to be the big factor that determines how much history gets into a news story. There's no hard and fast rule. And on a story like this, on-going and incremental, there's an opportunity to share a bit of history in small doses. A contextual or historical fact that might get cut from one script for lack of time gets saved in my notebook - and will go in a later story. No single report is comprehensive. Like the reporter, I think the viewer or listener learns as the story unfolds."

Alfonsi writes that she assumes everyone has a basic knowledge of the story. "That being said - I love it when you can tell a story that you don’t need to know any of the background to get it. It just stands alone, a moment in time," she writes.

"We found that the other day," she adds. "We went to a bomb shelter and met a young woman who was living underground for seven days. They didn’t have air conditioning or water but she and the other 50 people who were staying there were too afraid to go home for even a second. That day while we were there one man did leave, briefly, to get milk for his son. He was killed by a rocket. I don’t think you need a whole lot of history or knowledge of politics to understand a story like that."

We also asked the correspondents what resources are available to them as they tell the story of the conflict.

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